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Editors’ note: We are finding it extremely difficult to find detailed information from a radical perspective about the incidents of the 1970’s in Denver around the Chicano movement— especially the 1973 shootout and bombing, the ‘suspicious’ murders of Chicano militants, and the 1975 plot to bomb Denver police stations (in which militants were set up by an informant). If you have any good sources, please contact us.

DENVER, March 17, 1973 — Given the persistent pattern of police violence and terror against Denver’s Chicanos, an arrest of a man for jaywalking in front of Crusade for Justice headquarters touched off a confrontation between the Chicano organization and Denver police officers.

A gun battle followed during which Denver police reported that they were fired on by snipers.

One person was killed and 17 people were injured, including a dozen police officers.

Corky Gonzales of the Crusade alleged that the police threw grenades in an assault on Crusade headquarters, but the police accused the Crusade of storing explosives inside the apartment building.

The bombing, along with a string of murders of key Chicano activists under suspicious circumstances, were among the incidents by which the government repressed the militant Chicano movement in Colorado in the 1970’s.